Electronic systems and circuits have made a significant contribution towards the advancement of modern society and are utilized in a number of applications to achieve advantageous results. Numerous electronic technologies such as digital computers, calculators, audio devices, video equipment, and telephone systems facilitate increased productivity and cost reduction in analyzing and communicating data, ideas and trends in most areas of business, science, education and entertainment. Electronic systems designed to produce these results usually involve interfacing with a user and the interfacing often involves presenting information in a variety of formats (e.g., video, graphical representation of images, audio, text, etc.). The information is often proprietary and managing the distribution of proprietary information in modern electronic systems can be difficult.
Electronic systems are often utilized to present a vast variety of information for numerous different purposes. The information can be associated with a number of different activities, user experiences, presentation formats, etc. For example, electronic systems use proprietary information in the presentation of movies, music, video games, books, etc. The information can have a variety of formats and/or conform to number of different protocols. For example, information can be configured to be compatible with a variety of standards such as joint photographic expert group (JPEG) standards, moving pictures expert group (MPEG) standards, motion picture expert group audio layer 3 (MP3) standards, and/or portable document format (PDF) standards.
Digital distribution of proprietary content can be problematic. Traditional information communication and storage technologies often make copying of proprietary information relatively easy. However, developers of proprietary information usually have an economic interest in the content and desire to restrict the distribution of the information to individuals that purchase a right to access the content.
Electronic systems usually store information on a memory or storage medium. The information can be stored on a variety of storage mediums such as random access memories, hard disk drives (HDD), compact disks (CDs), digital versatile disks (DVDs), etc. The manner in which proprietary information is written and read to and from a storage medium of an end use presentation system can have significant impacts on the ability to enforce proprietary rights associated with the digital information. Traditional end use electronic systems usually have a storage medium (e.g., hard disk) that a user can readily write and read information to and from. A user typically has to load or write information to the traditional end use storage medium. Loading information onto end use hard disks can be inconvenient and problematic.
One traditional method of loading information onto an end use storage medium is to utilize a network to download the information from a remote location. Conventional network access can be inconvenient especially for portable or mobile end use platforms where reliable connections are not readily available. For example, the end use mobile platform has to be connected to a network often limiting mobility to the availability of a cable connection. Even wireless connections can have service location limitations, as some areas do not have adequate transmission and/or reception facilities. In addition, a number of technical problems can be encountered such as slow connections and/or communication interruptions. Limited bandwidth and connectivity problems can significantly impact the amount of time required to download information. Waiting for information to download can be disruptive to a user experience, especially when a user desires “instant on” presentations.
Proprietary information can be loaded on a storage medium before shipment. For example, proprietary digital content such as movies, songs etc, are usually distributed in a storage medium such as a compact disk (CD) or digital video disk (DVD). However, conventional distribution of proprietary content loaded on traditionally configured storage mediums is usually limited. For example, additional proprietary content can not typically be added to the storage medium after shipment. The amount of proprietary information stored on a particular storage medium (e.g., CD) is also often relatively limited. For example, a CD is usually limited to a relatively few songs (e.g., a limited number of songs from a particular artist) without the ability to offer an increase in proprietary content access for that CD at a later date.